BIS gear for Challenge Modes

Was just wondering tonite on open raid, when so many people advertized about challenge modes - are there any guides out there for BIs gear in it? Just got me to thinking because BIS gear in challenge modes could actually incorporate blues, 5.1 items, 5.2 and so on. Don't know before I try something I like to be prepared to the best of my ability and if that means farming dungeons everyday again or going back to the raids of last patch so be it - Any thoughts?

also note that set bonuses and the legendary gems that go in sha-touched weapons do not work in challenge modes.

But I think the idea is supposed to be that anyone should be able to do these, and I really don't think extra gem sockets are going to buy you gold time. Just get a set of gear, optimize it, and you should be good to go.

To serve your lord and do his bidding, is that honorable? Even if that lord is an unimportant piece of shit?

sorry if this is a bad place to ask, I haven't tried out challenge modes yet but I was wondering how the item descaling or whatever works, ie if you geared for a haste breakpoint, do you lose it when gear scales down?

Just note whatever stat values you have when standing outside a CM entrance, go inside, note your stats... compare and figure it out?

Then Id have to make a massive spreadsheet full of gear and their stats and then figure out an optimal combination resulting in 7.5% hit and exp and the optimal amount of other primary and secundary stats taking both gems ans enchants into account... that's way beyond my capability but would be easy to add to askmrrobot or wowhead profiler or chardev or things like that

---------- Post added 2013-04-29 at 03:26 PM ----------

One more question. Do the added extra sockets work that you can get from the prince for ToT and sha touched weps? And are the formulas to downscale gear known? (Either made available by devs or figured out by someone)

Probably worth mentioning if you have the legendary meta you should swap to a helm with a normal meta, because it most certainly does not work in CMs (just as the +500 stat gems do not). Well, the passive part might, but at that point the regular metas are better.

Well first of all you need to specify for what class and what the purpose of the challenge mode gear is. If you just want to get gold you probably want your healer to have as much spirit, int and crit/haste/mastery (depending on best stat) as possible, while as a tank you want to gear as defensively as possible. If you are going for rank 1 times you want everyone to gear as offensively as possible.

That said items with your prefered stats who also has gem slots are BiS items, the higher the item level the more stats you will also get. Yes items do get scaled down but a HC TF item with same stats as an item of level 463 will have up to 40 more stat points, while not much it is something that does help.

Well first of all you need to specify for what class and what the purpose of the challenge mode gear is. If you just want to get gold you probably want your healer to have as much spirit, int and crit/haste/mastery (depending on best stat) as possible, while as a tank you want to gear as defensively as possible. If you are going for rank 1 times you want everyone to gear as offensively as possible.

That said items with your prefered stats who also has gem slots are BiS items, the higher the item level the more stats you will also get. Yes items do get scaled down but a HC TF item with same stats as an item of level 463 will have up to 40 more stat points, while not much it is something that does help.

I'll be going as both a blood and frost dk, and I'd like to be prepared with a full challenge mode specific gearset for the best possible time our group can get

Here are few points to clarify what was said above:
-Any armor piece (excluding trinkets) of ilvl 463 and above are exactly equal in stats as long as they do *NOT* have any socket in them
-At any MoP ilvl 463, a socket cost 80 primary stats and 80 total secondary stats
-The cost of each sockets gets downscaled with the rest of the stats, meaning an item with twice as much stats as it should have will get all its stats halved after the socket penalty, which will make the cost of each socket of 40 primary stats and 40 secondary stats, making sockets more valuable the higher the item ilvl is.
-The maximum amount of stats you'll have from gear will be from the highest item level and higher amount of socket you can get on a piece. a iLvl 1000 chest with no socket isn't any better than a ilvl 463 chest with no socket.
-Socket bonus cost nothing in the stats budget and are just an added stats bonus.

- Hit and exp do not get scaled down.
- Sha touched gems are de-activated (I'd imagine the new legendary meta is too)
- Now that you know your hit and exp are fine you want items with your 2 best stats on, the more gem sockets the better. An ilevel 463 item with your 2 best stats is superior to a thunderforged hc item with suboptimal itemisation.

I don't think theres a site or addon that optimises CM gear atm. For something like a resto dru you would have to step inside the instance to see where you stand on haste breakpoints and then reforge accordingly. It's a bit clunky but I don't think theres a better way atm.

Since there are no ilvl 463 Epic items, the least item qualety epics are ilvl 476 random scenario items, the answer is NO ilvl 463 items are blue, have a lower stat budget then epic items and are therefore not good for challange modes.

Since there are no ilvl 463 Epic items, the least item qualety epics are ilvl 476 random scenario items, the answer is NO ilvl 463 items are blue, have a lower stat budget then epic items and are therefore not good for challange modes.

Yet virtually all top times, and most of the ones close to them, are from people using specifically chosen 463 gear.

Shoot for 463 or greater with your Best secondary stats.
More sockets the better, but not remotely necessary nor optimal if the gear has bad secondaries.

Mhm, I do not believe that. But If you have a proof for that maybe I can be convinced.

I can only speak for myself on a Frost Mage point of view: I could easily built a "perfect" epic Challange mode Frost set with only haste/crit/hit on the items with no problem.

There is no "perfect" set.

I've got two challenge mode sets on my mage, one comprised of 463 and the other entirely of epics ranging from 489 to 522 (using haste/crit and/or haste/hit secondaries) - the difference between the two when scaled downward is miniscule even with the additional sockets.

Skill and Class usage contribute significantly more to the speed of the run than how "twinked out" your gear is.

I say this to get more to the point of the OP - don't bother getting anal over it. Use what you normally would in PvE.

No matter how much time and effort you put into the gear, the difference will be marginal. Having a good solid team, time and skill is the pretty much the only thing that counts - which is probably why I haven't got very far!
Saying that, team composition can make a difference - but again, skilled melee is still > poor ranged.